Musicology Colloquium Series
Sponsored by The University of New Mexico Department of Music, The Department of Spanish and Portuguese & The Latin American and Iberian Institute
Ortega Hall Reading Room 335
Thursday September 19, 2019
2:00-3:30pm
“Reclaiming ‘the Border’ in Texas-Mexican Conjunto Heritage and Cultural Memory”
Name of presenter: Cathy Ragland
Talk Description:
The Texas border town of San Benito is the subject of this talk which examines how memory and legacy operate within a community of “self-appointed” cultural brokers and a local municipality inspired by capitalist notions of urban development, economic growth and cultural tourism. The legacy of two of the town’s “native sons” – Narciso Martínez, the “father of Tex-Mex conjunto music” and Baldemar Huerta (aka Freddy Fender), a Grammy-winning country rock artist – have been memorialized in two opposing positions to reclaim border music history in a context of globalization and hypermediacy that seeks to counter representations of a US-Mexico border perpetually “in crisis.”
Biography:
Cathy Ragland is associate professor of ethnomusicology in the College of Music at the University of North Texas. She is editor of the series Sonic Crossings for UNT Press, and author of the book Musica Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating a Nation between Nations along with several journal articles, book chapters, and public press articles. Her research and scholarship have focused on music and border politics, identity, immigration/migration, rurality, and gender relations. She is an experienced journalist, folklorist, and applied ethnomusicologist who has collaborated with Mexican immigrant partners in co-founding sustainable music and arts programs and organizations in New York City. She has directed public arts festivals, exhibits, and arts education programs in New York, Washington, Texas, and Mexico. These experiences have informed her scholarship and teaching.
The Cruelty of Jazz: Toward a Hemispheric Politics of Sound
Rooted in concepts of affect and Empire, this paper argues that jazz operated in various 20th century Latin American settings as a vital touchstone bearing the risks and benefits of urban modernization, hemispheric geopolitics, and transnational cultural production, “cruelly” echoing the United States’ cultural, political, and economic dominance in the hemisphere and beyond.
Music from the Americas presents Versus 8
Percussion music in the Americas is one of the most exotic, visually attractive, and antique forms of expression since pre-hispanic times. Preserving, promoting and creating music for the percussion family of instruments is at the core of Versus 8’s mission through international collaboration with composers, performers, students, and cultural centers that contribute with their resources to the cycle of music, namely: creation, performance, and listening..
A Day in the Life of the Bosavi People
A 90 minute, 4K, 7.1 surround sound eco-rockumentary concert of a day in the life of the Bosavi people and their rainforest home in Papua New Guinea, directed and produced by Steven Feld and based on recordings and images from 1976-2018.